Cambodia Bans Pop Song About Monk in Love

 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- A government order banning a pop song
about a Buddhist monk falling in love will unlikely affect its sales, a
production manager said Tuesday.

Officials recently pulled the plug on radio and television broadcasts
of "Wrongly Quitting Monkhood for Love," saying it tarnishes the
reputation of Cambodian Buddhism.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said in a statement last week that
the song's content "affects the dignity of other monks who are striving
to sacrifice their physical and mental strength to devote themselves to
Buddhist teaching."

The song was released as a video CD, which shows scenes of the monk
hugging and kissing the girl while bathing in a pond near a pagoda.

Iep Chimeng, manager of a studio that produced the video CDs, said the
ban would have little impact on the sale of the 4,000 copies already
out in the market.

He said the aim of the video was not to degrade Buddhism in Cambodia
but to educate monks who might not yet have rid themselves of sexual
desire.

"He was obsessed with her beauty, and, against advice from older monks,
he left the monkhood for her. But when she abandoned him later, he
realized that he was wrong and that he's the one who was hurt," Iep
Chimeng said, adding that the man returns to the monkhood.

Some 90 percent of Cambodia's 13 million people adhere to Buddhism.
About 60,000 monks live at more than 4,000 temples across the country.